Critique Your Resume Before an Employer Does
The
purpose of a resume is to give the reader a summary of one’s personal history, educational background, and employment experience. The average hiring manager or recruiter reviews hundreds of resumes to fill open positions. Thanks to keyword searches your resume has landed in the must review pile. Now it is time to actually have a set of eyes read your resume, this is when less is more.
Let’s start with the keyword summary – your resume should be brief but specific in highlighting your accomplishments that are relevant. Your resume is a billboard for all to see what you can do and how successfully you have done it. But space is limited and you cannot exceed the limit. A resume should entice the employer to want to find out more about you because your skills, experience, and results makes you the best candidate. A resume should not be a short story or a novel where the summary becomes obscured with flowery prose and unnecessary details. Short bullet points are preferred in lieu of verbose sentences.
Personal history includes accomplishments, awards, bilingual/multilingual, civic organizations, fraternities or sororities, professional organizations, or volunteer work/community service that is relevant to the job. It is not necessary to include your height, weight, or gender on your resume unless the job requires it, such as, in the entertainment industry. Personal information should be limited to need to know information. If you are applying to work at a ski lodge and you are a ranked amateur skier or Company ABC requires their employees donate 15 hours a week to community service and you are a volunteer every year to clean up local playgrounds these are examples of relevant personal information.
Under education or educational background highlight diplomas, degree or degrees, projected graduation date, grade point average (GPA may be necessary for recent college graduates), certifications, licenses, and/or continuing education units for a professional organization. Many professional organizations require that their members complete mandatory CEU (continuing education units) to stay current with their industry and an active member. Again the educational background must be relevant to the job listing- a commercial driver license (CDL) is not relevant if you are applying to be a librarian.
Tailor your resume to the
job that you are applying for by highlighting your relevant employment experiences. It is important that the skills and experiences listed show a return on investment that was beneficial to the organization. How did you impact the bottom line? Keep your employment experience concise but specific.
The most important take away is that less is more. Your resume is a billboard summarizing your relevant reasons to interview you for a specific job. Do not clutter your billboard with unnecessary information risking that the employer will not get the point and ultimately toss your resume. Also review these
resume creation tips. Best wishes.